The present invention relates in general to shipping containers and, more particularly to a new and useful collapsible container and pallet container combination.
Cartons and boxes formed of multi-wall, corrugated fiberboard have been employed as bulk containers for bulk materials in solid, paste or liquid form and, as well, for containing a wide variety of heavy parts and materials. Such containers may, for example, be constructed from triple-wall corrugated fibreboard in accordance with the teachings of U.S. Pat. No. 2,985,553. Triple-wall corrugated fibreboard comprises three corrugated containerboard sheets and four spaced containerboard liner sheets, one of each of the corrugated sheets being interposed between a different pair of the liner sheets and adhesively secured thereto. Containerboard is the paperboard components, namely linerboard, corrugating material, filler chip, from which corrugated and solid fibreboard are manufactured.
Triple-wall corrugated fibreboard is an extremely rigid material with exceptional strength. Triple-wall corrugated fibreboard boxes exhibit great column strength and therefore, permit stacking one on top of another when containing heavy loads without excessive buckling or complete collapse of the vertical walls of the boxes.
Conventional fibreboard containers for bulk and other heavy materials are often mounted on skids or pallets to facilitate handling and a great variety of pallet containers have been used for inter-plant transportation, intra-factory use and for warehousing purposes. Such containers may be collapsible or expandable. The fibreboard container is typically strapped, nailed or stapled to the pallet. If the container is to be reusable, it is highly desirable that it be capable of being knocked down and folded flat in a manner that will reduce its bulk by at least two-thirds from its normal shipping cubage when folded. Moreover, it is desirable to be able to maintain the association of the container and pallet to facilitate shipping, storage and reassembly of the pallet container. Rigid attachment of the container to the pallet, while providing assurance of the continued association of these components, restricts the degrees of freedom through which the container can be manipulated from set-up to knocked down folded flat condition, and vice versa, as well as affecting the knocked down folded flat configuration which can be obtained possibly requiring more than the optimum amount of storage surface area that would otherwise be needed.
As used here, it will be understood that "folded flat" does not imply that the container is in a literally folded into a flat sheet form but that in such a manner as to substantially reduce its bulk from its normal shipping cubage when not folded.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,373,637 discloses a collapsible corrugated fibreboard container which has a segmented floor. Part of the segmented floor of the collapsible container is permanently fastened to the top surface of a pallet. The container can be collapsed into a folded condition with the various panels and flaps of the container all lying folded flat above the pallet. In this way, the pallet and collapsed container take up less space for storage. The folded container can be assembled into a large box configuration substantially over the entire surface of the pallet. The floor of the container comprises two separate flaps each divided into two halves. The inner halves overlie the center of the pallet and are permanently attached to the pallet while the outer halves of each floor panel fold upwardly when the container is folded and collapsed on top of the pallet. This reduces the amount of freedom a person has in manipulating a container when trying to unfold a container into its erect condition.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,708,861 discloses a pallet mounted container which has only a single floor flap fastened to the top surface of the pallet, thus permitting the entire container to be tilted out away from the pallet. The remaining floor flaps of the container are of conventional design, however, and no provision is made for collapsing the container into a small volume storage condition on top of the pallet.
Other pallet mounted containers are disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,291,364 and 3,036,752.
Collapsible storage containers are disclosed by U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,094,458 and 2,761,609. Storage containers having unusual floor panel designs are disclosed in U.S Pat. Nos. 4,372,477 and 4,343,429.
Triple-wall corrugated fibreboard containers give rise to rather unique problems due to the thickness and rigidity of the fibreboard components. Folding techniques which are readily adaptable to standard containers may not be applicable to triple-wall corrugated fibreboard containers. Moreover, it is desirable to minimize mechanical scoring of such fibreboard due to the inherent loss of strength associated therewith and, as well, to avoid increased fabrication cost associated with unnecessary process steps.